Greetings from Chris LaMay-West, a writer and filmmaker in Vermont (hence the title)! I believe in the power of cats, rock music, Beat poetry, and the sanctity of Star Trek. Blog contents follow accordingly...
The latest in our ongoing series on the literary adventures of our hero. Me. In this chapter, we find that our hero, at the halfway point in the year, is at 17 out of 52 in his Goodreads self-challenge for 2012. There are two ways one could see this. 33%, being less than 50%, is well behind pace. On the other hand, 17 books is more than, say, 13. Or 10. Or 0. I'm a firm believer that ambitious goals, even if we don't meet them, probably get us hitting much higher than we would have if we'd aimed lower.
With that in mind, on to review!
Pym (Mat Johnson, Random House, 2011, 322 pp.) Earlier in the year, I read The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Poe's only novel. It is a strange and confounding little book involving high seas adventure, cannibalism, and Antarctic exploration. One of its peculiar features is how it seems to have worked on the imaginations of so many people who have read it, inspiring numerous literary responses. I document some of these in my review, where I noted, among others, Mat Johnson's Pym-inspired novel. It sounded delightful, and I wanted to read it. Having now done so, I can testify- it is delightful! His is the tale of Chris Jaynes, a not tenure-making African-American literature professor who is obsessed with Poe's novel, believing that it documents the beginnings of the intellectual construction of the American idea of "whiteness". When he's fired from an unnamed small liberal arts college for working on Poe rather than actual African-American literature, and for not getting on board with their diversity committee, his obsession only grows. He comes into possession of information indicating that Poe's tale was lifted from an actual narrative by a survivor of Pym's voyage, Dirk Peters. Jaynes realizes that Tsalal, the improbably tropical Antarctic island of really, really black natives (even their teeth are black) that Poe describes could be a real place housing a black culture untouched by Europe and colonization, and he becomes determined to find it. I won't spill the beans on what happens, but I will say that along the way there is romance (sort of), adventure and peril, tips of the hat to Lovecraft and Verne's Pym-inspired works, and some really skillfully-constructed comedic skewering of topics including ethnic identity, the War on Terror and Thomas Kinkade. All of this could be an unwieldy mix, but Johnson is such a dynamic writer, and has created such an entertaining and well-developed main character, that it works. Poe inspired me to read this, and this has inspired me to read more by Mat Johnson. Stay tuned!
Spider-man: Chapter One (John Byrne, Marvel, 2012, 328 pp.) I've been a fan of writer-artist John Byrne since I started reading comics, and I followed pretty much everything he did throughout the 80s and into the mid 90s. At which point I stopped reading comics, writing, being obsessive about music, i.e., basically being me, and instead focused on business, career, "success" et al. Having spent the last 10 years recovering from this detour, I've back-filled on a lot of comic milestones I missed along the way, including this, Byrne's 1999 stab at re-imaging Spider-man's early years. So how is it? I have to say, my review is mixed. It is always delightful to see Byrne drawing Spider-man, he really evokes the visual-aesthetic that Steve Ditko started the character with. And of course, he's a great writer (I think actually probably one of the major influences on my prose style, even more so than many "literary" sources), with a knack for re-working classic aspects of characters and making them fresh and new. I think the big problem here is that what he does is somewhere in-between a complete re-boot (like he did with Superman in the 80s) and dropping in on a present-day storyline but reinvigorating it by bringing it back to its roots (like his runs on, say Fantastic Four, or X-Men). As a result, he innovates around the edges of the Spider-man mythos without doing anything novel enough to really garner attention. While undeniable fun, there were also undeniable missed opportunities- the chance to make J. Jonah Jameson something other than a caricature, for instance, or really getting in to the psychology of how it would feel to be a geeky teenage pariah who suddenly has these amazing powers. Not to mention how the hell the whole Betty Brant romance could possible really work! I think this series showed the way you could refresh Spider-man and set down some leads that Ultimate Spider-man ended up following in the 2000s, but it doesn't get there itself.
The Poetry Home Repair Manual (Ted Kooser, UNP - Bison Books, 2005, 170 pp.) I actually got this book a few years ago, intending to use it to help me work on and revise a collection of my poems. For various reasons (bottoming out, rehab, recovery, etc.), I wasn't in a space to follow through at that time, or for some time after. Last year, I once again got motivated to put together a poetry collection, so I dusted off this book and cracked it open. I'm glad I did! Ted Kooser, former Poet Laureate, has written a wise, personable and above all, practical guide to the nuts and bolts of making good poetry. It reads more like a talk with a writer friend who keeps pulling books off the shelf and reading poems to illustrate what he's talking about, but it contains every bit the good advice and cautions against bad habits that you'd expect a manual to have. Over the last few months it's really helped me shape the collection of poems that I'm planning on submitting for contests and publishers (target date for completion: July 31st!), and I heartily recommend it.
We're at about five months to go now, and one of the more noteworthy things about the month since our last update is just how little has been noteworthy. The polling average is currently looking like this (courtesy of Real Clear Politics):
The last time Romney had a sustained lead was for a few days in October. The apparent spike a few weeks ago where he nearly overtakes a plunging Obama appears to have been more of a data artifact. There were no major news drivers, and the Intrade odds that put Obama at around 60% didn't move during that period at all. I suspect what happened is that a window in which there were few current polls out in the field magnified the influence of a Romney-favoring outlier (Hello, Rasmussen!).
The last week or two, though, the Intrade odds have lowered to around 55% (interestingly just as the RCP average has been showing a spike for Obama). This probably reflects an unease in the air about the economy. A little bad job report here, a little Euro anxiety there, will do that. It's not hard to imagine that a downturn will have a negative effect on Obama's chances, as Nate Silver points out. If the economy does continue downward, it probably won't really matter that Romney has no logical counter-plan. The incumbent usually, quite simply, wins when things are buoyant (1972, 1984, 1996) and losses when they're bad (1980, 1992).
You'll see a few recent elections I've skipped above that did have an incumbent running- 1976 and 2004. Those, in some ways, are the most interesting cases for where we are now. When an economy is mixed, you usually get: surprise, surprise, a close election (Bush narrowly winning in 2004, Ford narrowly losing in 1976, the lead trading back and forth all along each year).
That, I think, is what we're likely to be looking at. Obama has maintained a consistent favorability edge over Romney:
His approval has been pretty much flat-lined between approval/disapproval for the past four months:
And his electoral college outlook remains strong. Taking only the states where Obama is polling at least a percent ahead of his consistent national 2 percentish lead, we get:
In other words, even if Obama went down nationally to 50-50ish, he'd still win enough states comfortably enough to win 275-263.
So to add it up:
Strong electoral college position
+
Personal favorability
-
50-50 job approval
-
Lingering economic concerns
=
???????????
Probably about what we're seeing. A 1-2.5% polling lead, leading to a sufficient, but always going to look at risk, electoral college outcome.
Romney will pick a VP, which will produce some buzz. Which will fade. Romney will get a convention bump. It will fade. Obama will get a convention bump. It will fade. There will be a few debates, and opinions on them will be mixed and numbers will surge and dip temporarily. Mini-brouhahas will erupt over a past revelation here and a mangled phrase there. But, unless the economic situation turns clearly worse or clearly better, I don't see anything fundamentally changing the picture that points to an ongoing nearly break-even that eventually (and narrowly) breaks for Obama.
My Goodreads profile is telling me that I'm at 14 on my self-challenge to read 52 books this year. It seems to think this puts me 5 books behind so far. The math is hard to argue with, but I still feel pretty good about my progress! Within the past week or so, I finished three books, which I am looking forward to reviewing for y'all. Y'all? Yes, I am a California native currently living in New England. But half the family is from Arkansas, so I feel justified in engaging in the occasional southernism. Now, back to books... Batman: Dark Victory (Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale, DC Comics, 2001, 388 pp.)
I'd been looking forward to this volume ever since finishing the last Batman collection I read by these two guys, The Long Halloween. That tale had been set in the early period of Batman's career, as many of my favorites are, and depicted the origin of Two Face. It was dark, and excellent, and, also worth mentioning, one of the major inspirations for the storyline of the last Batman film. This one promised to tackle an equally interesting story, even tougher to do well, the origin of Robin. So how did it do? Very well! I won't get in to spoilers here, but I can say that the Robin storyline is in a way a subplot to the main action, the search for a serial killer who's targeting Gotham's police. But that storyline provides us with a development of Batman's character and mission that makes it utterly sensible how Robin comes to be a part of it. It's so well done that I can even almost buy in to the red, yellow and green costume. About my only quibble is the way Tim Sale draws the Joker, giving him an inhumanly long face, and teeth that defy all laws of anatomy. I know it was a bad spill he took into that vat of chemicals, but this is just a little too much, especially for a volume that otherwise is firmly grounded in a grim realism.
The Spiral Dance: a Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (Starhawk, HarperOne, 1999 20th Anniversary Edition, 310 pp.)
Over the last few years, I've become very interested in Goddess-centered religion. I found that, for me, thinking of (and talking to) Her as a "She" helped me develop a connection I never quite had with "Him". This is, of course, because of particular features of my history and makeup, and I don't claim it as any kind of universal truth. Nevertheless, it did get me interested in other people looking at the feminine side of the divine, and this book kept coming up in the course of my investigations. One of the most meaningful spiritual experiences I've had in the last few years was at one of the seasonal rituals hosted by Reclaiming, the group founded by Starhawk, the author of this book. Despite that, I approached reading it with some trepidation. I associate the Neopagan movement in the Bay Area with more than a little flakiness and knee-jerk radical politics. Reading it, though, totally turned my perception around. Especially in this 20th Anniversary edition, where Starhawk has an opportunity to go back and provide additional commentary on each chapter from the 10th and 20th anniversaries, what really impressed me was seeing Neopaganism as a living, evolving spiritual system. The point is not how "factual" the picture of the history of Goddess religion is, or what the sources and authenticity of various rituals are. What I found most impressively in these pages was a low-dogma "try it and see" approach to a spiritual way of being that strives to be open for people of all genders and sexualities and reconnect us to nature and each other. There was lot here that resonated with me, and that will illuminate my thinking as I further pursue my spiritual exploration... Why Things Burn (Daphne Gottlieb, Soft Skull Press, 2001, 125 pp.)
I started reading this collection of poems a few years back, but never got around to finishing it. I guess it just wasn't the time, but I'm glad I returned. These poems are excellent, searing, and grounded in the inner realities of the heart and the outer realities of urban life, which tends to be some of my favorite poetic (and generally literary) territory. Daphne Gottlieb comes out of the performance poetry scene, but seems to have utterly escaped the often-encountered problem of performance poems not translating well on the page. Much of her poetry is political and feminist as well, but she rarely sacrifices the poetics to the politics. Which, let me tell you, is not an easy trick to pull off. I was especially delighted by how she plays with form- deliberately mutating the shape and breaks of lines, and hybridizing her poems with other texts (such as news stories, or commercial materials). Again not an easy thing to pull off without falling into gimmickry, but in her deft hands it opens up meanings and connections in a startling way. It's inspired me to once again try some more experimental writing in my own poetry, and that, I hear, is the sincerest form of flattery.
It's the end of April. Month-ends can be good times to take stock. Today also happens to be three weeks since Rick "pro-petting, anti-Planned Parenthood" Santorum suspended his campaign, leaving Mitt Romney as the finally really now inevitable Republican nominee. So, where are we, three weeks in to the general election campaign? A good place to start to answer this question is to look at the Real Clear Politics polling average:
There are three things that immediately strike me:
1) Over a year of being the most likely challenger, even during times when Obama's popularity rating has been much lower than it is now, Romney has had the lead for a total time of less than three weeks.
2) On the flip side, Obama has never been above 50%.
3) Most minds are already well made up, the undecided share is only about 8.5%.
It is certainly important to keep in mind that, as FiveThirtyEight reminds us, April polls are not a strong indicator of eventual results. Still and all, despite what the constant press cycles might make one think, Obama's trend thus far has been much smoother, and more consistently in the positive, than Bush's in 2004:
In fact, it doesn't look too different from his path in 2008, despite all the controversies he's encountered:
On the electoral college front too, all indications are that Romney's path, while hardly inconceivable, is definitely steeper than Obama's. Even if you take the relatively pessimistic tack of assuming that Obama only carries the states where his current polling lead is above 5% (compared to a 3% national average), that still gives him 280, 10 more than he needs. You can check out the latest polling for the swing states yourself at RCP by clicking on the states at the map there. The map for the scenario I describe above looks like this (and you can play around with your own at 270towin):
I think it's worth thinking about 2008 for a second though. Obama ended up winning with 52.9% of the vote, which is actually the highest percentage anyone has had since 1988. But consider: the party in power had been there for eight years, its sitting President was intensely unpopular by the time of the election, the worst economic crisis in decades was blowing up, the Republican nominee ran a lackluster and often bumbling campaign, picked a crazy and crazily unqualified person as his running mate, and was running against the hugely well-funded, highly popular Obama who was running an extremely positive and skillful campaign. And with all that going for him, Obama still got less than 53%. It's hard not to believe that this election is going to be very close.
I happen to think both things are true: Obama will most likely win and his margin will seem (and will end up being) thin the whole time. I look forward to analyzing and writing further along the way, and hope you read along!
You may have heard of the "latte millionaire" theory (the above image is not mine, by the way, but I do salute the brilliance of whoever originated it). I am writing to formally place on the record my opinion that there's a major flaw with this theory.
The underlying notion has probably been expressed by many people many different ways, but the latte-centric formulation of it was made by a guy named David Bach in his book "The Automatic Millionaire". The mathematical logic of it, as far as it goes, is impeccable. Let's say you buy a $3 latte every workday. If, instead, you saved that daily three dollars, it would total $3 x 5 days a week x 52 weeks=$780 a year. Over 35 years, that would be $27,300, which is not too shabby. Now, if, on top of that, you invested your saved $780 a year in the stock market, and received an average 10% return a year, the amount you save each year compounds over 35 years, and by the end of the period you would have $211,399. By forgoing a frivolous expense that you hardly even notice on a daily basis, you've made yourself wealthy by retirement. There's just one problem with this idea:
Under this formulation, you don't get to have a latte for 35 years. Let's say you start it when you're 30. You won't have a latte again until you're 65!
Don't get me wrong. I understand the wisdom of planning and saving for the future. I certainly understand the idea of delaying immediate gratification for longer term gain. And yes, you could make your lattes at home and bring them, or have the office coffee. But part of the joy of life is splurging for an occasional latte, making a normal work day just a little bit frothier and more magical.
I also understand that the idea is not about latte and is, in a way, a metaphor. And that's where my real objection lies. Yes, it's a good idea to keep track of impulse and splurge spending, to not be doing it all the time. And granted, as it is a whole lot of us have not only not been saving, but
have been buying things with borrowed money, hence our current collective economic
dilemma. A pinch of the "latte millionaire" idea would be a good
antidote to that.
But the larger idea of delaying gratification for decades, saving up not just our money but our experiences of joy for retirement, threatens to impoverish the decades in-between. And I wonder if this sense of joy poverty is in itself something that fuels our urge to splurge. Could more living for today, in a balanced, engaged way, actually lead to less urge to buy on credit and more saving for the future at the same time? Call me a dreamer...
Welcome to the next installment of my excavation of the 2000s, a musical "lost decade" for me. The Intro and Part I (with the first five albums) can be found here and here, but to briefly recap, I scrolled through a cross section of nine reputable and varied "best of the decade" lists, and compiled a list of those albums that got mentioned as "top 25" in at least three places. After eliminating ones I already had, or knew wouldn't work for me (sorry, Radiohead, Strokes, Coldplay), I was left with 20 albums from 2000-2009 that I never got around to and (according to my sources) deserved a listen.
Part I covered the first five, highlighted in blue here. Today we're doing the next five, in yellow. All reviews were written live upon listening to the album for the very first time. And with that, we're off!
Animal Collective, “Merriweather Post Pavillion” (3)
Arcade Fire, “Funeral” (7)
Beck, “Sea Change” (5)
Daft Punk, “Discovery” (4)
D'Angelo, “Voodoo” (3)
Eminem, “Marshall Mathers LP” (3)
Interpol, “Turn on the Bright Lights” (4)
Jay-Z, “The Blueprint” (6)
Kayne West, “Late Registration” (4)
LCD Soundystem, “Sound of Silver” (6)
Madvillian, “Madvilliany” (3)
MIA, “Arular” (3)
MIA, “Kala” (4)
Outkast, “Stankonia” (6)
Phoenix, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” (3)
Spoon, “Kill the Moonlight” (3)
Sufjan Stevens, “Illinois” (3)
The Flaming Lips, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” (3)
TV on the Radio, “Return to Cookie
Mountain” (3)
Wilco, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (8)
Eminem, “The Marshall Mathers LP” (2000, 3 votes)
Eminem is
one of those people who I always enjoy when I run across their work, but have
never actually gone the next step to getting an album. Until now, I guess. And already,
after the opening PSA informing me that Slim Shady does not give a fuck what I
think, and the dense menacing kick-off of “Kill You” I’m glad I did. It’s
pretty great, how this rant is simultaneously frightening and yet frightened, in
the character of Slim Shady and yet questioning that character, and then ending
with “I’m just kidding.” Then “Stan”, which I was already familiar with, and
remains one of the most chilling things ever committed to record (yes, in my
mind, music is still committed to record). I mean damn, an artist writing a
song in the voice of an obsessed fan who takes that artist’s violent imagery
seriously, over a remixed bed of Dido. Dude, doesn’t do black music, doesn’t do
white music, does fight music! In fact, the whole thing is full of the
braggadocio, swagger and threat of hip-hop at its best, but full of an anxiety
about the effect of that projection that is half genuine and half
self-justification. Which is track seven, “The Way I Am” to a T. “The Real Slim
Shady”, track eight, is bringing back one of my favorite Grammy memories, when
he performed this as like, a hundred Eminem look-a-likes with microphones
flooded the auditorium. One of the best moments to every happen in that
mausoleum of musical mediocrity. “Remember Me”, track nine, even seems to be
sampling horror movie voices, as if there wasn’t enough menace in its rant
already. And on track eleven, “Marshall Mathers”, is the mask slipping, revealing
the real guy behind Slim Shady, with all his insecurities? Or is it in itself a
construction, a put on? Something that can even bring up these questions makes
me happy. And the reason this track works, the whole album works, in fact, is
because there’s clever musical mixing and vocal delivery behind it all, giving
us a layer of entertaining to go along with the heavy and occasionally vile
contents. I’m digging on “Drug Ballad” too, which is equal parts celebratory
and cautionary on drugs. In other words, what an actual addict’s mind sounds
like once the doubt has begun to creep in. And how am I not going to love a
horror rap whose tag line is “Mentally ill from Amityville”? Ah, and now “B****
Please II” gives us the two sons of Dre together, Snoop and Eminem. Nice. Then
“Kim”, a fantasy of kidnapping his ex in front of his baby daughter and driving
her off to kill her that may be one of the most frightening things I’ve ever
heard in popular music. Okay, by track seventeen the “suck my dick if you don’t
like it” is getting a bit old. But I think it’s a testament to artistry that an
hour+ of resentment and boasting doesn’t wear thin sooner. And the last track,
“Criminal” dives right in to the am I serious/am I not, I’m a criminal/I’m just
kidding. Overall, definitely a keeper.
Interpol, “Turn On The Bright Lights” (2002, 4 votes) (Full disclosure: on review, my iPod seems to have put these tracks on shuffle rather than playing the album in order. My apologies to readers, and Interpol, if this affected my ability to discern artistic intent.)
While I've been painstaking in not reading about these albums beforehand so as not to prejudice my reviews, I was aware of Interpol by general reputation. You know, Second Coming of Joy Division and all that. Which immediately begs the question: isn't the First Coming enough? Nevertheless, I'll try to deliver a fair assessment here. First off: "untitled". Actually kind of soft and gauzy, doesn't remind me of Joy Division as much as soft-boiled Coldplay. "Obstacle 1" isn't bad, with some driving rock sound, and vocals that remind me of, of all things, the Killers. Also not sure of the significance of this, but this song is talking about what "She" did, whereas I think JD is usually more personal, talking about what "You" did to "Me". Track three has more of the shimmery Coldplay B.S., but with a driving beat and the vocals hitting a peak of bitterness and resignation that pulls it out. Apparently, as the song would have it, "Stella was a Diver and she was always down", man I really am digging this one. "Roland" is much more in Joy Division mode, so I see what people mean. But it also has a strong layer of, well I don't know what else to call it- 2000s indie rock in its New Wave infatuation subset- sound to it. I wonder if this album was more like chicken or egg to that phenomenon? Given the 2002 release date, I'm betting on its being causal rather than following, and that alone is noteworthy. "NYC" is a better post-9/11 New York elegy than the Strokes, I think. Ah, and this is where the album title comes from too. Well, so far I can say I don't hate it. It won't get you listening as closely as the Beck, the best Hip-hop albums from this list, etc. But it doesn't grate in mediocrity either. I think it might be like Daft Punk's album- a good fit for a mood, and going down smoothly when you're in that mood. I do want to know more about the 200 couches where we can sleep tonight in "PDA". Another thing about this album that's coming out strongly in "Say Hello To The Angels" is that, in contrast to the studied grimness of the lyrics and vocals, the music can be rather poppy and is informed by some of the bounciness of New Wave. New tag line: at its finest, there are moments on this album, like Leif Erickson" that are wonderfully disquieting. For the most part, though, it feels more deliberately produced and less emotionally genuine, and ends up in a kind of "nice background music that nobody could object to" Coldplay territory. In my developing rating nomenclature, I would call this a Good/Good-. And the fact that so many critics thought this was a superb album? Well, compared to the masses of dreck that they have to listen to, it surely is. But compared to the truly sterling?
Jay-Z, “The Blueprint” (2001, 6 votes)
Hip-hop is
a particularly blank spot for me in the 2000s. I’m a big fan of the 1985-1995
“Golden Age”, but after that my knowledge drops off rapidly. And Jay-Z is a
blank spot for me within 2000s hip-hop- I know the kids I was in rehab with at
the end of 2006 loved him, but that’s about it. So I’m looking forward to this
review increasing my knowledge, if nothing else. First impressions? You’ve
gotta like an album that starts off thanking you for your purchase, which track
one “The Ruler’s Back” does. Also nice use of musical sampling, what sounds
like some soundtrack selections and a classic soul riff in there too.
Seriously, track two “Takeover” is sampling the Doors? Love it! Nice strong
beat too, almost reminds me of the metallic beats I so loved from 80s hip-hop
a-la Run-DMC, Public Enemy, LL Cool J’s first album, etc. I can certainly hear
Kanye West’s production influence here, and the things I really like about his
first album I also like about this- clever use of sampling, variations of tempo
and pacing that avoids the droning sound badly produced hip-hop can get in to,
the braggadocio backed up by intelligent lyrics. “Girls, Girls, Girls” for
example, is the kind of cock-boasting you might expect, but with such great
soul-sampled hooks and funny twists of phrase that it gets away with it. This
album definitely does the obsession with feuding with other big rap names and super-materialist
trip that I don’t especially dig about East Coast rap, but it’s so far pretty
free from gangster bullshit, which is nice. Oh, well it was until track six-
“You Don’t Know”, which could be seen as critical commentary of inner city
life, but is on the edge of celebrating it too. Damn do I love it musically,
though! And Hola’ Hovito is getting points from me for the Hispanic call-outs. Track
eight, “Heart of the City” is a beautiful thing to behold, too, at once
existing in, and criticizing, the trash-talk between hip-hop artists. Track
nine, “Never Change” is a nice mellow slow jam, and is also making realize that
one thing I haven’t been for one second so far in this album is bored. Also, as
I listen more closely, I’m realizing it’s a mellow slow groove about carrying
guns and living a life of crime because, hey, I’ll never change. Hmmmm. Then
“Song Cry” is a breakup song that understands how the woman wants out, while
still calling her “the bitch”. Oh hip-hop… I don’t imagine he gets away with
that with Beyonce these days. So far I’d say I’m 110% with this album in terms
of music and production, and 75% with it in terms of lyrics and intention.
That’s still 92.5% on average, so there you go. Certainly digging the Emminem
guest appearance on “Renegade”. And then there’s the last track, “Blueprint”,
where all the boasting and self-promotion just evaporates and is replaced by a
heartfelt tribute to his family. Mighty fine way to finish.
Kanye West, “Late Registration” (2005, 4 votes)
Given how much I loved, loved, motherfuckin’ LOVED “The College
Dropout”, I’m expecting to get along well with this album. And indeed, I’m
loving the lead-in “Wake Up Mr. West” with the blow-hard Professor/Dean type
from the skit going immediately into the explosive beat of “Heard ‘Em Say”,
which then fades into a slow R&B grove with keyboard sounds tinkling in the
background. Also nice to hear on “Touch The Sky” the standard hip-hop “I made
it/I’m on top of the world” trope delivered with heavy helpings of gratitude
and wonder. And a good time party vibe! And then “Gold Digger”, which I knew,
but didn’t know was on this album. Nice little misogynist ditty. Or is it?
That’s the beauty of delivering a criticism of women behaving badly- is that
pro or anti-woman? Both at the same time? And if it comes with this groovy a
beat, how can you not bop your head along to it? As with his last album, the
mix of braggadocio and vulnerable self-revelation, smooth flow,
unapologetically intelligent wordplay and clever musical remixing of everything
in the soul tool-bag just works. Boy do I miss this Kanye, versus the arrogant
braggart we have now. Damn, “Crack Music” is like gangster rap turned inside
out, drawing all the connections between the street drugs and the social and
political setting that puts them there, and touting music as the community’s
counter-attack. Then “Roses”, a heartfelt song about his grandmother in the
hospital that rolls up into a scathing attack of the social-economic setting of
unequal healthcare, and comes back down into the personal pain again.
Seriously, hardly anybody in the last decade in any musical genre was able to
tell lyrical stories that tackle as many issues, personal and political, while
still ringing true. I’m proud that he’s my cousin. I mean, we haven’t traced
out the family tree yet, I’ve always just assumed based on the name. And
“Addiction”, damn. He gets it, that pursuing money, girls and weed is all about
the same thing. And then mixing “Diamonds Are Forever” into a song about Blood
Diamonds from Sierra Leone
and linking that back to urban bling and his own complicity. They should have
just named the whole decade after him. Also, it’s kind of nice to see him take
out a whole track “Hey Mama” to talk about how much he loves his mother. I
mean, who gets away with that? Hip-hop and Country, those are the only genres
you can do that in. I’m really liking the “broke Fraternity” skit running
between tracks too. Okay, nearing the end now, track 19 of 21. About the only
thing critical I can say about this album is that it lacks some of the truly
soaring moments of his debut, like “Jesus Walks” and “Never Let Me Down”. But
considering that it’s not uncommon for a sophomore album to suck ass, saying
that this one isn’t quite as awesome as its predecessor, well, that still puts
him ahead of, oh, I don’t know- MOST EVERYTHING ELSE THAT CAME OUT THAT DECADE.
LCD Soundsystem, “Sound of SIlver” (2007, 6 votes)
In my mind,
one of the biggest sins any song can commit is a slow start. Sometimes, if
you’re engaged in some very atmospheric arty Pink Floyd or Deathcab for Cutie type-shit,
I’ll allow it. But otherwise no. For Electronica, which already threatens to be
boring by its very nature, this is a double-sin. All of this is a roundabout
way of saying that track one on this album, “Get Innocuous!” is off to a very fine
start. Immediately set in with the beat, developed some Bowiesque vocals later
on, and is ending with a background refrain and break that reminds me of early
80s hip-hop. And some honest to goodness laser sound effects toward the end. So
far, these cats are earning their reputation as the Electronica outfit that a
rock fan can still love. Track two, “Time to Get Away” is starting with some
nice fat 80s beats, and is kind of reminding me of a lost Prince song circa “1999”.
Now on to “North American Scum”, which wins my sympathies on title alone. Ha,
the whole thing is them trying to convince us they’re North American, not
English. Love it! Not least of which because, in form and refrain, this is a
rock song, handclaps and all. They’ve got the early 80s synthesizers out for
track four “Someone Great”, and bless their furry souls for it. This really
could be something lost in time from the American half of synth-pop New Wave,
say maybe Missing Persons. Made it to track five now, “All My Friends” which
is, gosh darn it all, a rock song as well. With a beat you can dance to! Halfway
in now, I’d have to say the big difference between this and our earlier
Electronica entry from Daft Punk is that this is more emotionally affecting.
There are songs, like this one, that really evoke a mood (nostalgic regret and
longing for the pre-mistake phase of a relationship gone bad, in this case) and
get you interested in them lyrically. Not all of them (track six, “Us Versus
Them” for instance, is having fun experimenting with cross-breeding 60s
psychedelic garage rock and New Wave alienation, but isn’t doing anything
personal), but more than Daft Punk, which was really like feel good party
music, with clever twists, but no real attempt at depth. Oh geez, and the next
track, “Watch The Tapes” could be like an artifact from the era when punk
collapsed into synthesizer New Wave, kind of Gang of Fouresque with a dash of
Wire. “Sound of Silver” (track eight I mean, eponymous with the album), in
between early 80s beats and metallic handclaps, seems to be encouraging us to
remember how vivid our emotions were as teenagers. Interesting… Okay, final
thoughts as we hit the last track. This is definitely a cut above Daft Punk in
terms of substance (while being no less fun and inventive), but I feel it’s not
going for something real and true often enough, or showing enough cohesiveness
as an album, to quite get to the league of the Arcade Fires, Becks, Emminems,
Jay-Zs, etc of the list so far. Got to say though, ending with “New York, I Love You,
But You’re Bringing Me Down”, a downbeat, somehow earnest while being tongue in
cheek, paen to a city not quite as dirty and interesting as it used to be, is
pretty fucking awesome.
Paranormal State (Ryan Buell and Stefan Petrucha, A&E/It Books, 2010, 372 pp.)
I just finished reading the book pictured above, but I have not yet identified the apparition that appears in the photograph. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed it! As a fan of the show (and the whole 2000s paranormal research TV bumper-crop- Ghosthunters, Destination Truth, Fact or Faked, et al), I was already well-disposed going in. But being as the whole thing could have easily gone in a cheesy or sensationalistic direction, it was a special pleasure to find it both down to earth and balanced. It's hard to know with a co-written work how much of Ryan's voice actually comes through, but it certainly feels like the guy that you see on the show- shy, humble, and as interested in helping his clients as he is in exploring the unknown. It's also nice to see his skepticism in play- being leery of psychics and mediums unless they bring compelling information, talking about the uncertainties of interpreting evidence from the equipment, and pushing himself and his clients to look for alternative explanations instead of just assuming everything that goes bump in the night is genuinely paranormal. It's also nice to see that, while he's very up-front about how his Catholic faith informs his interpretation of cases, he's not at all doctrinaire about what's behind the phenomenon he encounters, and discusses multiple possibilities of what "the unknown" might be. The book largely consists of the behind-the-scenes story of the series being accepted by A&E and the filming of the episodes from the first season. It's definitely interesting to see how several days of preparation and 48 hours of investigation get turned in to a half hour episode, and all the complexities that get "smoothed out" in the storyline as aired. As a paranormal geek and a film-production geek, I really enjoyed that perspective. Along the way, there are some nice side articles on the history of paranormal investigation, topics in research (including psychological phenomenon that are often mistaken for being paranormal), and interviews with the team. My favorite parts, though, were the insights into who Ryan is and why he does what he does. If I have anything resembling a "criticism", it's that I'd like to have seen even more of that. As it is, if you'd like a book on the paranormal from a believer's perspective that still makes room for skepticism, with a conversational tone and a great big heart, I'd recommend Paranormal State.
As you may have heard, Rick Santorum dropped out of the race yesterday (or, technically, suspended his campaign). With Newt Gingrich already having fired his entire staff and outlined a plan of relying on social media going forward, that's pretty much that. Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee. (Sorry Ron Paul, but facts is facts.) And so it's over. But also beginning!
With the general election campaign de facto beginning today (with 208 days, aka 7 months to go, saints preserve us all) I'd like to muse about what kind of shape the primary campaign leaves Romney in vis-a-vis the general election. I think a couple of visual aids are instructive in this regard. First of all, let's look at Romney's trajectory getting here versus the previous Republican nominee, John McCain (charts courtesy of RealClear Politics):
What's immediately visually apparent is that Romney's had a heck of a harder time getting there than McCain did. McCain lagged until just before voting started in January, and then shot ahead and pretty much never looked back. Romney, in contrast, repeatedly had and then lost a lead, took a month longer to get to presumptive nominee status, and even as of the point of wrapping the whole thing up, has never been above 40% in national polls. Against, it should be noted, a far weaker field than McCain faced.
County-by-county results tell a similar story (maps courtesy of Wikipedia):
What is immediately apparent is that Romney 2012, excepting Virginia, where incompetence kept everyone else off the ballot, only wins certain kinds of counties. Namely, New England and Western (both areas he did well in 2008) and urban. There are many states where he won (like Illinois, Michigan, Ohio & Wisconsin) by virtue of taking the urban centers, while Santorum took almost all of the rural counties. Compare this to McCain, who, aside from some obvious weakness in the South (though he still did better, county by county, than Romney 2012), tended to sweep entire states when he won them.
Why does this matter? McCain, so far, has been the most weakly supported Republican nominee of the modern era within the party:
While Romney's total will no doubt climb from here, he's currently trending much lower than McCain did in 2008, which was itself much lower than any other Republican nominee. In fact, so far Romney's near the bottom for any nominee from either party. The party, any party, of course, supports their nominee. But enthusiasm matters. The only candidates who have gone in to the general election and won with less than 50% internal support were Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, who were both heading in to elections a challenger would be heavily favored to win (worsening economy, scandal or discredit of existing administration, outgoing party had been in power for 8 years, etc.).
Now, I'm not predicting a blowout based on this. My gut feeling is that Obama has gone from having a 50/50 chance 6 months ago to being something more like a 60/40 or 70/30 now. In other words, he's more likely than not to win. But it will never seem assured, it's going to be close the whole way. In very close elections, as this one has all indications of being,
even a marginal comparative lack of enthusiasm can be damaging. And
Romney appears to have a pretty major internal lack of enthusiasm
heading in.
If you've already read Part I where I explain my madcap project of searching for and reviewing the best 20 albums I may have missed in the first decade of the 2000s, then let's get going! An explanation of how the reviews were written, and the first five albums, are below.
If you missed the intro, go and read it, and then come back.
Okay, ready now?
Part IV: Review Rules
My friend
Matt thinks one of the best things I ever wrote was a 12-pack fueled 12-album
review. That may be, or that may not be. It gets a little long, and is too gonzo for publication in the world as we know it, but you can
judge its merits for yourself by reading it here. What I think he liked about it was its
spontaneity and unpolished aspects. Which, when you think about it, fits music
as a visceral, immediate medium. More than books, more than movies (which you
often ponder afterwards), music is something we appreciate (or not) in the
moment. So, while I’ll leave the beer out these days, I am going to write the
reviews real-time as I listen to each album for the first time. Except for
corrections of misspelling and gross grammatical error, everything you see is
spontaneous first thought.
Part V: The Albums (first five albums)
Animal Collective, “Merriweather
Post Pavillion”(2009,
3 votes)
Hmmm. Don’t
get me wrong, I do have an
experimental bone in my body. But I usually prefer my music to be a little less
sound-effect produced and tape loopy. Which is not to say that I have no room
for distortion- there are places where I really like it, but those places tend
to be where the distortion is informed by an underlying sense of Rock song conventions
(cf. the Raveonettes, Jesus and Mary Chain, Sonic Youth). So far this reminds
me of the start of a Pink Floyd song that then doesn’t get past the start. Like
being stuck in the first 10 seconds of “Us and Them”. Track two, “My Girls” is
rather like track one “In The Flowers” in all the ways I didn’t totally care
for track one. The weird thing is, I like some equally messy-sounding groups.
No Age and Times New Viking come to mind. I think I like it better there
because it’s produced by guitar over-drive, versus overlaid studio computer
tricks. It comes by the noise more honestly. Track two is growing on me though…
Oh, track three, “Also Frightened” is winning me over through jungle sounds in
the background, despite the continued presence of annoying bell-ringing sounds.
You do have to like a song where the refrain is “are you also frightened?”. See
now, “Summertime Clothes” (track four) just teased me by starting off with a
sound that almost was real crunching guitars, but devolved into a sample repeat
loop. I actually like the lyrics, and don’t mind their obscurity and the difficulty
of reaching them through the sound, or rather I wouldn’t, if the sound itself
weren’t bugging me. What can I say? Less is more! In Beatles terms, I’m more of
a “Helter Skelter” or “Yer Blues” than a “Revolution Number Nine” or “Day In
the Life”. Whatcha gonna do? This reminds me of how much I loved the Shins on
“Chutes Too Narrow” and how turned off I was when the next album got
studio-experimental. I feel like these guys could put out a great album too
with something less “cleverly” produced. Track Seven, “Guys Eyes” is making the
best case so far for being worth a second listen, I think mostly because it’s
added in a background beat that gives the whole collage something to hang on. Track
eight “Taste” seems to be doing something similar, and with a Beach Boys twist,
but it has a few too many distracting “airplane in takeoff” sound effects in
the background. Is it a bad sign that my first thought on reaching track nine
is, “Another fourteen minutes of this? Ugggh.”? P.S., that’s a bad sign in
itself. Average track length of almost 5 minutes is rarely justified for
anyone. Ah, reading about them now on AMG and Wikipedia, which I didn’t want to
do beforehand to influence my review. And you know, if I had, I would have
expected something like what I’m getting- a smart, not uninteresting, musical
art project. Which certainly has its place, but is just not my cup of tea.
Next!
Arcade Fire, “Funeral” (2004, 7 votes)
“Neighborhood
#1 (Tunnels)” started slower and more studioey than I usually care for (see the
entire above entry, for example) but by the time it really kicks in, you
realize that the slow start has been building up power. It earns the “woo oh
hoo” chorus it ends up with. Nice kick-off of drums and guitars on track two “Neighborhood
#2 (Laika), such that once the arty extra instruments arrive, they’re welcome.
I’m also liking the “recorded in a steel drum” sound of the vocals. There’s
something about the album so far that feels like struggling to remember a
dream. It’s there, you know it’s full of power and meaning, but it’s just
slightly out of reach. In a good way. Oh wow, loving how the otherwise suspiciously
artily named “Une Annee Sans Lumiere” moves from a dreamy sound with nostalgic
early 60s instrumental rock touches to a driving rock finish. And these guys
know enough about sequencing to give the next song a driving rock start for the
segue. My head is bobbing of its own accord, and that’s always a good sign.
Whereas Animal Collective’s Indie Rock was the 95% indie, 5% rock version, this
is a good solid 50-50. Or at least 60-40. Me likes! Ah, track five, “Neighborhood
#4 (7 Kettles)” knows that after you’ve pumped it up two songs in a row, you
need to slow it down. Which it’s doing with a song that feels like slow surges
of emotion. And track six, “Crown of Love”, now takes that feeling and
transmutes it into a more straightforwardly earnest, pleading song. You know
what I’m realizing? This is an honest to God album! Like one where the songs
belong together and belong in the
order they’re in, building on each other and taking the listener somewhere. You
know what else I’m realizing? It takes me far less space to talk about
something I’m liking than something I’m hoping to like and failing. Here I’m
approaching track 8 and thinking, “Oh no! Don’t end in three more songs.” Also
nice to hear a female vocalist on some of these tracks. I’ve always felt that
groups that have both male and female vocalists are worth their weight in
iridium (and, my end of album reading reveals this is a husband and wife team,
and an album inspired by the passing of important people in their lives- no
wonder it surges with genuine emotionality!). This album is everything indie
rock should be at its best- smart, arty, conversant with Rock’s ways and means,
and not afraid to produce a song that gets your foot tapping. An immediate
“yes” for going in to permanent rotation in my 2000s playlist!
Beck, “Sea Change” (2002, 5 votes)
Well, it’s
starting off with something that sounds like a sad cowboy song, and that’s always good in my book. I’ve tried to
avoid reading anything about these albums beforehand so as not to prejudice my
reviews, but I did know that he wrote this while going through a breakup of a
long-term relationship. That’s what this first song, “The Golden Age” sounds
like, in a weary early 70s country rock kind of way. If I ran across this at
random, it would not even cross my mind that it’s Beck, but then again being a
musical chameleon is pretty much his stock in trade. And sure enough, the
second song “Paper Tiger” has the same weary and worn feeling that I remember
from my own divorce, but in a completely different musical setting. This one
has a beat, Beatlesque string section effects, etc. In emotional tone though,
it seems to hang together perfectly with the song before it, and that can be
quite a fine way to build an album. Leastways, I’m still listening. Hmmm, and
now track three “Guess I’m Doing Fine” is back to the country sound of the
first. And really, even given a synthesizer effect here and there, so damn
authentic sounding. Seriously, it brings to mind Gram Parsons, and “Wild
Horses”. Track four is named “Lonesome Tears”, which certainly would have you
expecting another country song, but this one is back to the Beatlesque
instrument swirls. Also maybe a little Pink Floydy. And aching, tired and
gorgeous. It sounds like lost love. Oh hey, track five, “Lost Cause” I know
you! And had no idea you were by Beck. This one is kind of like synth-folk. I
realized I’m writing a lot about the music here, but the lyrics are quite worth
the time as well, straightforward without being trite, and sounding like
they’ve earned their world-weariness. I also like how the music is getting more
mixed up as we go along. Overall, strongly in an acoustic, country-tinged vein,
but with classic rock studio production accents, and things that feel like 80s
pop all dropped into some kind of wonderful blender and mixed together. You
know how a lot of stuff on the radio sounds like it’s trying and has its heart
in the right place, but ends up sounding like ass? If it succeeded at what it
was trying to do and didn’t sound like ass, it might sound like this. Oh, I
really like the way track ten, “Sunday Sun” falls apart into a harsh tangle of
feedback at the end. And then song eleven “Little One” positively surges with
emotion musically, which is an almost chilling counterpoint to the gruff
exhausted vocals. Every song on here sounds like looking straight into
someone’s naked heart. I’m fully on board with everyone who describes this as a
masterpiece.
Daft Punk, “Discovery” (2001, 4 votes)
Electronica
is, for the most part, not my bag. That being said, I do like the way track
one, “One More Time” jumps into it full-speed ahead. No slow weird intros,
bizarre sound effects, just beat, beat, beat- go! I do like some kinds of hip-hop
and dance music, and this first song is clearly in that vein, rather than
droning Rave sound, so maybe that’s it. It reminds me of the best of 90s and
2000s dance music, and, looking at the release date, probably heavily
influenced the later. Ah see, track two, “Aerodynamic” did have the slow start
and weird sound effect bell tolling. Fortunately, it doesn’t last long, and
gets in to some pretty decent synthesizer faux guitar later in the song. I also
like the fact that there are lyrics here in most songs, as in track three
“Digital Love”. Are they the most profound lyrics ever? No, but they’re
energetic and fun, and buoyed by a sound that often adopts the structure and
pacing of rock music. I’m reminded of Fischerspooner and LCD Soundsystem,
though of course I have my causality backwards in both cases in terms of whose
sound influenced who. In track four, “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”, I’m
again picking up on something I’ve heard throughout, a strong strain of 80s
hip-hop and early 80s soul a-la Rick James, Earth, Wind & Fire, etc. Take
that, mix with some of the sensibility of rock, and you’re going to get an
Electronica I can stand behind. So much so, I’m almost willing to suspend my
natural suspicion of their being French. Don’t get me wrong, they turn out fine
literature and film, but their music is usually a little too cutesy for me. Although
it’s returning with the slow chords and heartbeat sound effect on track five,
“Nightvisions”. A little too ambient for me, I’ll probably drop it from my
final iTunes mix for this album. Especially since, see how nicely it perks up
again on the next track, “Superheroes”? You know, despite the dig I just
couldn’t help above, one of the sad things about the 2000s in American music
(and the 90s too, for that matter) is how black and white popular music were so
separate. This album has a sound that brings elements of both together, and I
wonder if it takes someone from the outside, like a European, to do that these
days? Track 11, “Veridis Quo” may also be a little too long, low key and
vocal-free for me, but otherwise I am quite enjoying this so far. Oh,
especially the penultimate track, “Face to Face”. They even keep the last
track, ten minute-long “Too Long” entertaining enough that I can forgive the
joke. This kind of album is never going to get to me on the same level that
Arcade Fire or Beck’s albums from this list do, but I wouldn’t kick it out of
bed, either. Musically speaking. There’s a mood that it fits, and it really
fits that mood well!
D’Angelo, “Voodoo” (2000, 3 votes)
Track one “Playa Playa” starts off with some
banging, mumbled voices and finger-snapping that feels like it goes on a little
too long before finding a beat. When it does, there’s some nice funk guitar,
and vocals that bring to mind the early 80s a-la Prince, Rick James, Earth Wind
& Fire. Still a little wandery, though. Not sure if I’m buying it. It’s
also going on way too long given that it’s basically a slow-jam with repetitive
lyrics bordering on the nonexistent. Song two, “Devil’s Pie” starts off more
hip-hop musically, and there are lyrics, even if they’re delivered is such a
low-key monotone cadence that it’s kind of like the Hootie & the Blowfish
of soul. There are some moments that lift above this, but not many. Track
three, “Left and Right” I’d keep, it’s reminding me of the best of 70s and
early 80s funk and soul, and has enough musical and vocal variability to save
it from the vague blah fate of the other two. Track four “The Line” is back to
the slow-jam blah, though. The next track, “Send It On” actually appears to be
putting my cat to sleep. Oh, but I’m liking track six, “Chicken Grease” in a
Moby sampling and remixing a funk classic kind of way. And then track seven,
“One Mo’gin” puts it back to sleep. About halfway through now, and already
waiting for this album to end. I’m having the opposite of my experience with
Daft Punk- that was generally with the groove it was in, a few tracks I’d drop.
This is generally not in the groove,
a few tracks I’d keep. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not at all terrible in the way
that a lot of 2000s radio is terrible. It’s just not my cup of tea. This is
certainly something people of good will could disagree about. And I definitely
hear, and appreciate, the influences- 70s funk, early Prince, early 80s slow
jams, even the neo-psychedelic side of Motown. But that just makes me want to go
listen to those sources, rather than this derivation.
Okay, that's it for now. Tune in next time for albums 6-10...
There’s a common
perception that the 2000s (Naughts, Nothings, whatever you might call the first
decade of our new millennium) has been, shall we say, a troubled period for
popular music. It certainly hasn’t seen anything along the lines of the birth
of Rock in the 50s, its flowering in the 60s, the Punk explosion of the 70s or
the Alternative Rock boom of the 90s. And this is not just about Rock. Hip Hop,
Dance Music, Country, you name it, nobody was exactly having a golden age during
2000-2009. Instead, it’s been more like a treading of water and triumph of
pre-packaged bland slickness in pop music, reminiscent in some ways of the 80s.
I had hoped that this might be a waiting period for the next big thing, but I’m
starting to feel some despair on that front.
Personally,
I was, in various ways, out of commission myself for large parts of the decade.
A little marriage breakup here, intense workaholism there, plus a major dash of
bottoming out and getting in to recovery will do that to you. You miss some life that way,
certainly. But, even more disturbing, you miss some culture. Now, it’s not as
if I paid no attention to new music in 2000-2009. As you can see elsewhere in
this blog, I had my musings about the decade, and best albums of the year lists
here and there. But, given my outages, I have been haunted by an ongoing fear
that there might be significant gaps in my musical experience of the decade.
More than
that, I’ve been curious about what I might have missed. Even in the worst
periods, there are diamonds among the dung. I wondered what might be waiting
for me, undiscovered…
Part II: Project Overview
To discover
what I might have missed, I first had to determine what others were saying the
best albums of the decade had been. In pursuit of this, I looked to a few
sources:
year-end top 5 lists from my
two favorite rock critics, Chicago’s Jim Derogatis and Greg Kot
I was
looking for albums that garnered multiple entries, since that seemed the best
way to cancel out the biases of individual lists (Pitchfork is tilted toward indie-rock, NME likes Brits more, Rolling
Stone is the stodgy conservative of the music journalism scene, etc.).
Combining 260
total listings from these nine sources ended up netting me 150 albums. Of this
150, only 43 made it on to two or more lists. That was actually kind of
refreshing, since the rap on these kinds of lists is that “everybody picks the
same things”. In fact, over 100 albums only appeared once, meaning that each
source’s tastes do have some individuality to them after all. Even better, out
of 150 albums total, only 27 appeared in three or more sources.
Part III: The List
I figured
this 27 was the crème de la crème, where I might find the great albums that I
had missed (the numbers represent the number of times an album appeared in the
nine sources):
Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 8
Arcade
Fire, Funeral 7
The Strokes, Is
This It 7
Jay-Z, The Blueprint 6
LCD
Soundystem, Sound of Silver 6
Outkast, Stankonia 6
Radiohead, Kid
A 6
Beck, Sea Change 5
Kanye West, The
College Dropout 5
The White Stripes, Elephant 5
The White Stripes, White Blood Cells 5
Daft Punk, Discovery 4
Green Day, American
Idiot 4
Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights 4
Kayne West,
Late Registration 4
MIA, Kala 4
Animal
Collective, Merriweather Post Pavillion 3
Coldplay, A
Rush of Blood to the Head 3
D'Angelo, Voodoo 3
Eminem, Marshall Mathers LP 3
Madvillian,
Madvilliany 3
MIA, Arular 3
Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix 3
Spoon, Kill the Moonlight 3
Sufjan Stevens, Illinois 3
The Flaming
Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
3
TV on the
Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain 3
As you can
see, I have some of these highlighted. The ones in yellow I already love, so I
don’t need to “discover” them. The ones in gray, well… I’ve tried to like
Radiohead. As documented elsewhere, I’ve failed. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t
think they’re bad, I don’t think people who like them are stupid or evil.
They’re just not my cup of tea. Ditto with Coldplay. And even more so, but with
less respect for the underlying musical product, with the Strokes.
Weeding out
albums I knew, or knew would be non-starters, by very happy coincidence, left
20 not totally familiar to me (as in, I'd never given them a proper listen from start to finish) albums from the 2000s for me to review (presented here in
alphabetical order by artist):
Animal Collective, “Merriweather Post Pavillion” (3)
Arcade Fire, “Funeral” (7)
Beck, “Sea Change” (5)
Daft Punk, “Discovery” (4)
D'Angelo, “Voodoo” (3)
Eminem, “Marshall Mathers LP” (3)
Interpol, “Turn on the Bright Lights” (4)
Jay-Z, “The Blueprint” (6)
Kayne West, “Late Registration” (4)
LCD Soundystem, “Sound of Silver” (6)
Madvillian, “Madvilliany” (3)
MIA, “Arular” (3)
MIA, “Kala” (4)
Outkast, “Stankonia” (6)
Phoenix, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” (3)
Spoon, “Kill the Moonlight” (3)
Sufjan Stevens, “Illinois” (3)
The Flaming Lips, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” (3)
TV on the Radio, “Return to Cookie
Mountain” (3)
Wilco, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” (8)
Stay tunedfor the next installment, in which our reviews will commence...
